running away
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AT] They've all lost someone. Now they can only search, or hide. But they each carry something, and Rockets are after those things. And somewhere in this web is an answer that ties it all together.
1. green

**A/N:** Written for the Indigo League Challenge, Viridian Forest task, and for the Mega Prompts Challenge, writing prompts #27 - multichapter with each chapter under 500 words

* * *

 **running away** _  
i. green_

She was hiding in plain sight and it just went to show how blind the world was. The white gloves still graced her hands, and her attire was made to match. All white, that day: the image of a winter princess on the Celadon runway – but winter or summer, those gloves would never be far.

And the only one who found the colour odd was her manager: the girl named White who was searching for something and taking advantage of the eyes that stared at her: the mysterious model that had risen from nowhere and that disappeared into nowhere. And sometimes she laughed in her own private space: laughed because all it had taken was a little dye and makeup and different clothes. She'd even kept her name – but people seemed to think "Green" meant "inexperienced" – a stage-name, nothing more. Then again, Green had been the least famous of the trio. The one who'd slipped through the cracks.

White gloves for Green and White as her manager. Green didn't believe in fate but White did, and so White stayed. And Green didn't mind. It made it easier to hide. Easier to pretend: the winter princess on the runway in a shower of lights and cameras without another care in the world.

It was also easier to see, when the region stood up to look.

And that was her justification.


	2. white

**running away**  
 _ii. white_

White watched. From here, she saw a lot of people. Not just in Kanto, but all over. Though they were back in Kanto now. And in those people, she saw possibilities: possibilities too slim to matter, to act upon. But possibilities that kept a flicker of hope alive nonetheless.

If only the stone she carried were white instead, she could have found someone by now. Ideals were easy to find. Ideals were everywhere. Those who squashed ideals enough to see the truth behind them were few, and none were like Black had been. People who wanted to reach the light that shone over the world. People who wanted to be the best. There was a never-ending supply to them.

Why couldn't Black had been like that too? It would have been so much easier to save him…

But he wasn't. He was just a heavy weight in her purse: a heavy stone.

She surveyed the crowd again. Green was on the stage, her eyes similarly sweeping. Hollow, strained eyes. The eyes that had first brought them together. But the stone had refused. It needed something else. Something more. Maybe those eyes were too broken.

And then she saw. Another pair of broken eyes, tinted gold. And black hair, just like _him_. Just like Black.

She spared another glance at the stage. Green was swept up on the shadow of lights and she would be for a while.

White slipped into the crowd like an eelektross.


	3. silver

**running away**  
 _iii. silver_

It had been spring in Johto, but he had left the newly blooming flowers for a Kanto still steeped in winter. Kanto was always a step behind like that, a step closer to the past. It was ironic, since the Ilex Forest in Johto was the home of the time-travelling legend – that had turned out to be far more apocalyptic than a legend. That was why he came to Kanto this time every year. The winter wonderland it became. They said Articuno flew over the continent and created it: paths of snow and buildings of ice and a white dot in the world from above.

They were inside the hall now and there was no snow, only cold. And the mysterious model named Green was on the stage, clothed in white. Even her gloves were white: simple and suited to the rest of her attire, elegant.

Then he looked closer. No: those gloves weren't elegant. They were made for everyday wear.

Like the gloves he wore on his own hands. Except they were black. And marked with an "S" that did not belong to him.

For he was Gold and the owner of those gloves, and that name, was Silver.


	4. gold

**running away**  
 _iv. gold_

A brunette who'd shoved a business card into his gloved fingers and then dragged him backstage.

'I'm White,' she said. 'Green's manager.'

Gold wondered if there was a colour theme running around somewhere. Or a season theme. He supposed that made him autumn. White was winter without a doubt and green was spring.

Or green would be spring if the namesake wasn't dressed in winter clothes.

And maybe gold would've been summer if gold wasn't _him_ : his name.

It was a silly thought, anyhow.

'White,' he repeated. 'I'm Gold.'

Her lips twitched. Maybe she saw that flimsy connection too. 'I'm also a talent scout,' she continued, explaining a manner of things Gold wasn't really interested in but he listened anyway. Because that was all he could do: listen, and watch. 'You have interesting eyes.'

He laughed hollowly at that. He knew well what his eyes looked like. Then he looked more closely at hers and found a similar shadow. A weaker shadow. She knew loss too. But she also knew hope. He didn't.

'What do you think truth is?' White asked, finally. She'd asked many questions before and since, and he'd answered each dutifully. And why not?

'The dead don't come back,' he said. And he watched her flinch.

She mouthed the words seemingly unconsciously. 'He's not dead.'

 _He_ might not be, but Silver was.


	5. bronze

**running away**  
 _v. bronze_

His name was Gold. More irony, since she thought bronze would suit him better. A dull bronze, like a rusted blade that no-one cared for. If he were older, her age, she was sure he'd have a stubble at the least and an unkempt beard at the worst.

Then again, Green had never suited her despite it being her name.

And she barely glanced at this Gold – just like she barely glanced at the rest of the world – until his black gloves caught her eyes.

They were ill-fitting, made for hands more delicate than his. Made for longer fingers; they clung at the wrists. She reached out and touched one before she even thought what it was.

Her gloves could feel the kinship. She could feel the similar material through them.

'Silver,' she breathed. A reminder, here!

And she swallowed and pulled her mask on again. Silver was gone and this was just a ghost from the past.

'You…knew him?' Gold asked.

She did not reply. She knew nothing. Was noting. Just a girl who put on masks and fancy clothes and danced on the stage.

And White appeared, her herald: her manager. 'Break's over.'


	6. grey

**running away**  
 _vi. grey_

He was bitter. Defeated. It couldn't be someone like that and the stone she carried was still cold and heavy and hard.

He was different to Green, but somehow he still reminded her of her.

Maybe they would be like that too. If they'd had no hope to hold on to. But they did.

Still, she watched Gold slip back into the crowd with her card, thinking of what could have been. He seemed weighed down. He seemed to be carrying some baggage. But his bag was small and apart from the material of his gloves being the same as Green's, she couldn't see anything unusual about his clothes…

And that might have been entirely inconsequential. But she saw the dull spark of something black in his bag before it vanished under paper and her breath hitched. How could she not have seen? And how could it even _be_?

She placed a hand over her own stone. It lay cold and quiet still, but this time she could feel it reaching it.

It sensed the other stone. The white stone.

White and black. Both silent. Both dormant – otherwise Zekrom would have been unleashed on the captive audience.

White and black made grey. And a part of hope that broke off from the main and fell.


	7. salmon

**running away**  
 _vii. salmon_

His bag felt a great deal heavier as he slipped away from the crowd, and he knew this time it wasn't the metaphorical weight of his failures but something physical. And there was only two things in his bag that were sentient, that could grow heavier…

And both of them belonged to Silver. His Sneasel – and the white piece of rock that was important enough to die for.

He hated that rock, but still he carried it everywhere. Lance's fault, really – or he liked to say that, anyway. Lance's fault because Lance was the one who'd given both to him, because Lance was the one to give a sound speech as to why Gold shouldn't just smash the damn thing into the ocean for all the good it'd done…

How that thing was supposed to help save the world, he didn't know. When the three great beasts of Johto hadn't managed it, why should a piece of white rock? And it hadn't answered the question. He carried it. He made sure it was always with him, safe from thieves and too-keen eyes –

Unless they had a white stone, whatever that was. Lance hadn't cared to tell and he hadn't cared to ask. But Silver had known. Silver hadn't cared to tell either. And then he'd gone and died and Lance had dragged the body back with those keepsakes and said he'd have wanted Gold to look after them.

He tried to give both to Green but she wouldn't take them. Nor did Sneasel go. The best they did was watch the unassuming crowd when they came close. Not often enough to be walking the same path, but enough to keep the flimsy thread still tying them together there.


	8. celadon

**running away**  
 _viii. celadon_

Hidden under the green of Celadon, the enemies started.

No matter how many layers were wrapped around a corpse, its smell would waft through. And this was a corpse they'd stumbled upon. A corpse they'd thought they'd lost with time already except they hadn't.

But they were a meticulous bunch. Their controlling web was carefully woven and little escaped it. So those monitoring the charts saw two little bleeping dots – dots that didn't correlate to anything they immediately recognised.

After that, it was easy to examine: to narrow down the coordinates in that space and time, and to find the source. And imagine their surprise when they discovered it was the powers lost years ago, lost in bloodshed – and it would mean more bloodshed if they had resurfaced from the graves.

And it was their advantage, since they hadn't known and spent two blissful years thinking there was nothing left to threaten their reign. The beasts were subdued. The birds were theirs. The dragons were broken stone – but how could they have known the dragons still lived?

But the signals were weak. They were still stone, though living stone they may be.

They could still smash the power before it rose.


	9. pink

**running away**  
 _ix. pink_

The curtain set on the show, a slow murmur amidst the crows and Green and White escaped them. The sun was setting when they left, and was setting still when the site manager called White away for something or other. Green stayed, watching the pink spread over the horizon like a thin cut, oozing blood. Once, she'd found it a beautiful scene. She'd say the sky was blushing. At some point she'd morbidly began to think it was instead slitting its wrists, bleeding away life.

Her life had done that. Slowly, step by step, she'd lost. What little she'd gained was eclipsed and now she wandered, washed out. And yet she continued to wander. There were no scars under her gloves: that was not why she wore them. The scars were all metaphorical. The life was something someone had been desperate to protect.

Maybe, she thought to herself that was the only reason she lived. The only reason she showed herself on the stage: to the world. Yes, she could stare at so many then: do what she'd done best, in that illusionary time where happiness and victory had both seemed possible things. But she could also show him – if he was somewhere, watching – and who knew? Maybe even when buried under mounds of soil or water, the heaven-ward eyes could see her.

Maybe he was still wearing that unfashionable hat of his. But it wouldn't lost its vibrant red by now. Just like Silver's hair. Pink, probably, the both of them. Just like the sunset.


	10. crimson

**running away**  
 _x. crimson_

Fresh corpses were the best, the brightest. And it was a fitting end to the white curtain they'd pulled up on the stage in Celadon. The blood was also an attraction: for the birds that consumed carrion, and for the zombies that drifted to the smell that personified their souls, haemorrhaging inside.

They didn't know who they followed, but they knew what. Two stones, and when the stones sung, they listened. And they'd heard the song. So this was their stamp of approval. A stamp that wouldn't quickly be forgotten: not by the one or two it was aimed towards, or the blind bystanders who didn't realise what had passed them by.

Of course, the blind are also fools. They wouldn't stand quietly and let their blood paint the walls. They fought, but they couldn't fight like their enemies fought. Such fights were too one-sided, and too rare. It wouldn't have happened then either if the white princess hadn't meandered on the stage.

There were two others there, suddenly. More pokemon. Two mantines and a mandibuzz and a mist attack - and then there was only a crushed clefairy and the bystanders that had been struck before they could run away.


	11. lavender

**running away**  
 _xi. lavender_

They didn't retrieve Clefy. It was too risky. Going to Lavender Tower was risky too but Green wouldn't hear otherwise. Gold followed, and after learning that they shared a mutual friend and a connection between their gloves, White let him. But her eyes were constantly boring into the back of his head, when they weren't on the road.

She didn't know who those men in black had been, but they'd frightened her. And they'd killed one of Green's pokemon and she was no slouch as a pokemon trainer. Gold knew more. Called them "Team Rocket" with a stark hatred on his face until it cracked and gave way to a silent grief, and White asked no more.

In any case, they saw no trouble as they walked to Lavender Tower, and then ascended it. They prayed for her Clefy first, and then Green and Gold spoke over each other to demand a second stop. White just followed them, and it turned out they meant the same pokemon after all: five pokemon buried without a trainer's name and yet both Green and Gold seemed to know.

She didn't ask. It wasn't her business. Lavender Tower was a place to say farewell to the dead, to pray for them - and if it was the same for trainers, then so be it, so long as those who came to pray could leave with a lighter load in the end.


	12. saffron

**running away**  
 _xii. saffron_

Their next stop was Saffron, and though White suggested having a break from the tour, Green shot her down. 'I have other business in Saffron,' she said, though she sounded distracted. They didn't question her. It was up to her how she dealt with grief, after all, unless they thought she was sinking too deep.

The route to Saffron was quiet too, and it turned out that Green's business was meeting with Saffron's gym leader. And Green smiled bitterly when the door closed behind them. 'It didn't work.'

'I'm sorry for your loss,' Sabrina replied, which didn't seem like a reply at all except she already knew. She was famous for her psychic powers, after all. 'But it's not a waste.'

She looked at Gold and White as she said this, not Green. 'The psychic energy here will mask the stones,' she said, after a pause in which no-one spoke.

And then both the white and black stones were on the table, for the four of them to see. And the three different stories that consolidated them. And part of the miracle they'd all been looking for - but they all lacked the other half. The hero of truth, the hero of ideals, and two friends that still had a faint chance to return.


	13. turquoise

**running away**  
 _xiii. turquoise_

Sabrina had known the whole time.

It annoyed Green, but after Clefy, she couldn't muster up enough energy to fill with rage. Still, it had turned out that she hadn't been looking for anything after all, but waiting for the threads to drift to him and she'd almost missed them. It it hadn't ben't been for Team Rocket, she _would_ have missed Gold even after she saw those gloves that should have made her reach out and hold him or shake him for answers.

And, of the three of them, she was the one who knew nothing of the stones. Sabrina explained them now. How they had the power to remake the world...or destroy it completely. How they were hope, and yet not hope. Some mumbo jumbo that implied it wasn't the stones but some sequelae later down the track, and she really didn't want to trust that woman again…

But she always felt like that. Sabrina knew too much. Told too little. 'Things will work out,' she promised and what else could they do but believe her and not? And if they didn't, they were casting away their hope as well. And not even Gold who lacked a clear goal could cast it away.

But he still asked. 'Silver..?'

'Everything will work out,' Sabrina repeated.

She didn't say the dead could not come back.


	14. magenta

**running away**  
xix. magenta

There was no need to hide, now. Sabrina hadn't said, but she also hadn't told her to keep her head down like before which meant she could choose. And yes, she did dance on the stage, but she danced in a mask. A mask that cloaked her body. Team Rocket had seen her twice now: once in the shadows, once in the wrong context.

There was a very easy way to get them to open their eyes. Two, actually. And she found herself grinning as she plotted. It would be sweet revenge. Not for Cleffy. Never for Cleffy. But it would be a real eye-opener for Blue, she garnered. Maybe for Red as well. And it was the thought of actually doing something worthwhile that made her head spin. The idea of springing a surprise on the unsuspecting world. Not hope, yet. Hell, they didn't even know what was risked.

But Team Rocket would get the answer loud and clear.

And Gold was happy to go along with her plan, because he wanted to see them sweat just as badly. He just couldn't do it by himself. And White… she had a different motive, but once Green pointed Blue out, she was happy too.

Because if there were heroes of truth and ideals in Green's book, they were Blue and Red. Just funny how they'd known each other for a year and never talked about it before.


	15. cream

**running away**  
xv. cream

They were still in Saffron. Sabrina might not thank them, but she doubtlessly knew of Green's plans and hadn't lifted a finger to stop them. White and Gold had mingled with the crowd and were keeping a watch. Green had Gold's mantine with her as well. Both mist and its flight ability would be handy in a quick escape.

She had the white and black stones as well, all an elaborate part of her ensemble so that only the Team Rocket spies would know that stark white and black amidst the cream dress and cloak had a greater meaning. One glove white, and one black - because she'd asked Gold for one of Silver's gloves and, learning the past they shared, Gold had given her the right one of them, and she'd given her right white in return. A more subtle undertone most of them would not recall but they'd know it significant: they'd know it significant because she'd, without fail, worn her white pair to every runway.

But now she stepped onto the runway with a different guise, flashing her teeth in a way she hadn't done since she lost Red and Blue and most of her outlooks on life. She saw the black specks in the crowd, and the whites: no grey, not anymore, when the world's been stirred up once again.

And they took the bait. The spectators scream. She doesn't.

She was not a fool to stay a statue on the runway. She was not even fool enough to leave the curtain.


	16. bubblegum

**running away**  
xvi. bubblegum

Ditto changed back. The perfect disguise that was yet to fail her and it didn't fail then, either. It had, once, tricked even the all-seeing Sabrina. Something far beyond the comprehension of Team Rocket's low order grunts and they both slip away, the bait and the acquired prize, and left the masses to descend into the chaos that will mask their escape.

White found her. And she was glad White was on her side because White had always been very good at finding things - except the thing she wanted to find most of all. But White had her hand and was leading her, and she could see Gold's black and yellow cap nearby as well, and they were just three nondescript crowd members struggling in the sticky mess an out of control concert has become and it's almost exhilarating, because she'd never been on that end before, but dangerous too if they get stuck, separated or found out.

Dangerous to have fangs so far away from the necks she wanted to sink them into.


	17. beige

**running away**  
xvii. beige

Gold was suddenly gone, calling out his pokemon and tacking a platoon and White and Green went the other way, to take the rest. They stayed together. White was still new, still green. Trained in one of the fastest training programmes that exist but nothing takes the place of experience and Green wa far too rusty from being idle so long.

It was time to brush off that rust. Long since time to brush off that rust. She threw White's back back to her and called out her pokemon. Screamed her orders. They charged with all the passion they could muster and left her standing there, pallid and drained while White added her own little din to the midst.

And then she buckled, suddenly, and Green's eyes rake her over with all the experience of a seasoned trainer, a seasoned actress, a seasoned thief.

Not an injury, or pain. Just an added weight, and when White shifts her bag into her arms, she understands. The white stone. Reacting. Heavy.

The battle retreats, leaving the two of them and the stones.


	18. cardinal

**running away**  
xviIi. cardinal

'Black,' White whispered, and Green knew she meant her friend and not the stone. But nothing really changed. They just felt a little heavier in their hands, over their shoulders. And they could not risk looking at them, in the open with the Rockets filtering about like the bats they were.

Later, they did look and they were the same. And White weeped over the other stone and whispered her friend's name again.

'Truth,' she muttered. 'What truth do I need to find to set you free?'

What could they offer her? Neither of them were seekers of truth. Perhaps they sought ideals. Perhaps they couldn't even be said to seek that. And they were not heroes. None of them.

They were saved by the heroes instead and left to mourn.


	19. blue

**running away**  
xviv. blue

Who were the heroes of their time? Red and Blue: poor frozen Red and despairing Blue. Idealistic Red with big dreams and without the skills to match, but he'd kept at it and climbed his way to the top, all the way to the top before they'd knocked him off because they didn't want an idealistic kid making waves… And Blue, the voice of reason and the rival to push from behind, even if he'd never wanted nor tried to be behind.

The boy who just pushed and pushed, versus the boy who'd sought the perfect formula and been transcended by sheer force of will.

Ideals and truth? It was impossible without Red, but she could break her silence for White at least, could she not? She only needed the truth.

'We're changing the itinerary,' she said. White's face was still tear-stained as it snapped up to stare at her. 'We're going to Viridian.'

'Viridian,' Gold repeated tonelessly.

Green wondered if that meant he also had bitter memories lurking there.


	20. viridian

**running away**  
xx. viridian

They went to Viridian, silent and lost in their own thoughts until the gym where Gold froze at its doors a moment before following them in.

The automatic gym system engaged. They blasted through it, three against one and it wasn't fair at all but it wasn't about getting the badge and they'd never get through playing fair. Blue was just too good for that. The best, aside sometimes (and not even every time) from Red. They can't just match the system. They have to beat it.

They beat it. And Green leads the way into the back of the gym. A sneasel bursts out of Gold's bag and she freezes for a moment. Gold freezes too. _Silver's sneasel._

But they weren't here for Silver's ghost. They were here for Blue.


	21. brown

**running away**  
xxi. brown

He was not pleased to see them. Pleased to know Green was alive, perhaps, not not pleased to be disturbed in his solitude. And his voice was cold when he asked: 'Why have you come? And brought them?'

Green shrugged. 'A lot of things,' she sighed. 'Two stones. Rockets. And tired of hiding, most of all.'

He frowned at her. She didn't elaborate, but White did, taking the bag from Gold's limp fingers and showing the white stone within. She offered it to him. 'Please?'

His frown deepened and he shook his head. 'Maybe once upon a time, but not anymore.'

'Just try,' she urged. 'I just...need to save…' Her lips trembled, and maybe that was what urged his fingers forward to grasp the white stone.

It was, however as he'd said, cold and still in his grasp. 'Not anymore,' he repeated.

White bowed her head.


	22. copper

**running away**  
xxii. copper

There were suddenly a lot of people to save, or who couldn't be saved. Silver whose body was entombed in the Dragon's Den. Red whose body was frozen on Mt Silver. Black whose body had been absorbed into the white stone.

Now, all the cards were on the table. Three seemingly unrelated stories tied together somehow, and they had to find the common thread that would untangle all of them.

'But the dead don't come back,' said Gold, and it was a bitter thing to admit to, once more.

But Blue shook his head. 'The power of some pokemon can transcend even our mortal limits.' And he told the tale of a boy who wound back time to save his father, and in turn saved an entire nation from sinking into the sea. Of two orbs that controlled two legends, and of a wish that had been stronger than both of them.


	23. rose

**running away**  
xxiii. rose

Was that their hope? Or were they simply looking through rose-coloured glasses at the world? It was ironic that the most logical of them, or so Green said, would provide that hope, but Blue simply laughed at her. 'If I had that hope, I would have left here and searched,' he said. 'Possibilities and myths. That's all they are.'

'But they're not,' said Gold suddenly. 'Blue, do you know someone called Silver?'

Green's head jerks up. She'd never considered that. Not at all.

But Blue was nodding his head. He did know. Though he was surprised at the question - and moreso by the items Gold was slowly removing from his bag and putting on the table. Two feathers: Ho-oh's and Lugia's, he explained. Two bells, to summon those legendary beasts. And a diagram of a ball with two wings etched on its release mechanism.

'The GS ball,' Blue whispered, awed. 'Red told me, before he disappeared.'

'The GS ball,' Green repeated. 'What's in there?'

Gold shrugged. 'Lance doesn't know. But he's sure it's important. He's sure they're all important.'


	24. dandelion

**running away**  
xiv. dandelion

It was a flimsy hope they now hung on to. If they had the ball, they could have summoned the legendaries and gained their feathers and released the power within but it was the ball they lacked. Red would be the only one to know how far he'd gotten, but he was a frozen crystal and unable to tell them a thing.

But they made their silent path to the cave in Mt Silver anyway, because Red is the only place they can start to search.

And their dandelion stalk proves fruitful because there, in the stone, is Red - and on his belt, seven balls.

And Sneasel's thief worked even through the stone.


	25. indigo

**running away**  
xv. indigo

Light bled into the cave, and golbat that snark and screech at them and they realise they'd been too hasty, too careless and led the Rockets right to them - but it didn't matter anymore because they were aglow: the GS ball and the feathers in Gold's bag, and the two stones - white and black - as well.

They were aglow and two dragons appear and roar and they were alone in the cave, wrapped in light and protected as the air crackled and burns outside. They could see nothing except each other and the stone that slowly melted away, do nothing except move forward to catch the boy that slumped, finally free, or the other boy who grew out of that small stone they'd carried here.

And then there was a childish giggle above them, and a small black hole that appeared in the sky and took form. And the first gasp of those conscious was of horror until the skin knitted back together, until the mottled grey became white, and then brown, and until he was human and alive again, and sinking into Gold's and Green's waiting arms.


	26. red

**running away**  
xvi. red

It wasn't an ending filled with blood. Reshiram and Zekrom had burned and fried all of that as well, and left no trace of their carnage behind. But there had been enough horror for them, even if they hadn't witnessed Silver's reincarnation. Perhaps that was their price to pay for that miracle, for turning back time, for carrying such powerful weapons with them all the while…

But they'd only done so out of necessity. Because there were people like the Rockets and Team Plasma seeking them. Because they had taken pokedexes once upon a time and somehow signed away their souls to a life of battle as well.

But they'd ended on a happy note, at least. Celebi had saved Silver and they weren't too sure what had saved Red and Black. Was it the stone, finding another hero of truth and resonating with the one of ideals and needing their masters out of stone and alive to order them? Or was it Celebi as well, reminding the stone it hadn't always been like that, that it had been human once as well? They wouldn't know. Maybe they didn't need to know. They only needed to awaken their returned companions and trudge out of that cave and that mountain and find some semblance of normalcy again - without trying to hide under the flow of the world, because that hadn't worked for them at all, had it?


End file.
